Red
by Javon Monae
Summary: Red. A three letter word that haunts me. After traggic events in my life do I move forward or let it overpower me.


Red

I look down. Red cover\ed the white tile floors of my bathroom, my hell. This self inflicted pain is the only sanity I have in this shit called a life. Red beautiful lines that define my controlled pain covered my inner thighs, thighs that parted and brought me to heaven and hell on more than one occasion; I ran through the darkness, the darkness almost blinding me. I passed countless trees, hoping to reach safety. Chased by my demons I ran faster but never fast enough. What you run from eventually does find you. Pushed, thrown, and beaten the mire and dirt was my only cushion. The dirt surrounded me. My long pigtails became undone. My small fingers clawed at the dirt flinging it at my demons. Tears flooded from my blue eyes. I looked down at those demons popping button by button off my starched white shirt, ripping my pink training bra from my body, and ripped my paisley panties from me. With tears in my eyes I faced my demons, yelled for justice to be served, pierced the night with my cries, my voice falling on death ears, and the trees absorbed my wails. Simultaneously my arms were pinned down, thighs separated, and mouth covered; I was pinned down to the earth. What have I done to deserve this execution of my innocence? I twisted and bucked to avoid the inevitable; one by one those demons impaled me, inflicted me, and destroyed me. I looked at the night sky, prayed that the North Star will bring my home.

"Please, just leave me alone; Please let me live," I prayed. With my eyes closed I bore the pain. Just as soon as those words left me those demons fled from me; I looked at my beaten body, red trickled from my core. In the mirror, I stared at my reflection not truly knowing the shell that stared back. Smile and make the devil angry. Would that smile even matter if it's not genuine? If it's not radiating from the inside out would he know?

I find myself leaving my L.A. apartment making my way to the café. With the natural eye I appear to be okay. Hair cut, smile on my face, so that I can make the devil angry; pale yellow sundress flowing in the slight breeze of this smog infested town. That's on the outside. People say that I am so in my head. People say that I am weird. Fuck, what people say! I am in an abyss, surrounded by the nothingness that is my lifestyle. All the faces that I see become faces of the past, present, and the future yet to come. I cannot touch them, define them, or even connect with them. And yet, the feeling is reciprocated. What is the daily bustle became me stopping on red watching life go on; and I am in the middle of it all watching it all happen before my eyes and yet I cannot join in. Stuck on glue. I am halted at this red light. Red, always holding me back reminding me of the past, haunting my present, and threatening my future. Forgive and forget. Catch and release. Everything happens for a reason. God, will never put more on you than you can bear.

I sipped on my non-fat three Splenda extra-foam no water Chai Tea Latte. While I sat outside, trying to type away the feeling that are on the inside. I watched L.A. pass me by, couples holding hands, cars in constant traffic; everyone going so fast to go nowhere at all. I watched my community before me. Remembered to put on my lie that would make the devil angry, my pale pink lipstick seemed to glimmer in the sunlight. I looked down at my red Louboutin shoes, somehow red always seemed to be with me, haunting me. It was my existence. A primary color that seemed to be the essence of me, power, energy, vitality, or the excitement of life; people describe that color in many ways. Me: pain, overbearing, bold, or simply me.

I open my night stand; stared at my painfully white room. White curtains, white bed sheets, and white area rug. I stripped out of that yellow sundress, kicked my red shoes off, one hitting the white wall and the other flying under my bed. I stripped out my bra and panties. I walked to my full length mirror. I stared me. Hair short framing my face, painfully bright blue eyes, pouty lips, olive skin, firm breast, flat stomach, my womanhood, thick thighs, shapely legs, and small feet; all of this was me. All of this was pain handed down from Eve. I cried a cry that came from the depths of my soul my body shuttered. I fell on to the floor holding myself, pulling myself into the fetal position. Pulling myself away from the edge, so many nights I thought about the past that haunted me. So many nights I just wanted to be okay. Forgive and forget three words that seemed so hard to do.

I closed my eyes, escaped into the abyss. Escaped into the inevitable, my white room was no longer so white. Red trickled from my wrist staining my painfully white area rug. Red haunted me. Red, looked for me. Red.


End file.
